French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu

A recent report has revealed that France's national police force has saved an …

France's Gendarmerie Nationale, the country's national police force, says it has saved millions of dollars by migrating its desktop software infrastructure away from Microsoft Windows and replacing it with the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

The Gendarmerie began its transition to open source software in 2005 when it replaced Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org across the entire organization. It gradually adopted other open source software applications, including Firefox and Thunderbird. After the launch of Windows Vista in 2006, it decided to phase out Windows and incrementally migrate to Ubuntu.

Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy.

At the current stage of the migration, it has adopted Ubuntu on 5,000 workstations. Based on the success of this pilot migration, it plans to move forward and switch a total of 15,000 workstations to Ubuntu by the end of the year. It aims to have the entire organization, and all 90,000 of its workstations, running the Linux distribution by 2015.

A report published by the European Commission's Open Source Observatory provides some details from a recent presentation given by Gendarmerie Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard, who says that the Gendarmerie has been able to reduced its annual IT budget by 70 percent without having to reduce its capabilities.

Since 2004, he says that the Gendarmerie has saved up to �50 million on licensing and maintenance costs as a result of the migration strategy. He believes that the move from Windows to Ubuntu posed fewer challenges than the organization would have faced if it had updated to Windows Vista.

"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users," said Lt. Col. Guimard. "Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."

Support for open standards is a key part of the Gendarmerie's emerging IT policy. Standards-based technologies give it more freedom to choose which vendors it adopts and also makes it easier for the Gendarmerie to interoperate with other government networks. It has found that open source software is better at handling open standards. Linux has also simplified remote maintenance tasks.

Linux has also been adopted by several other government agencies in France. The French National Assembly runs Ubuntu on over 1,000 workstations and the Ministry of Agriculture uses Mandriva Linux.

The success of the Gendarmerie Ubuntu migration reflects several emerging trends in IT. First, it represents the rising influence of community-driven distros which are largely supported internally by the organizations that adopt them. Analysts have noted a growing preference for this approach which can be cheaper than adopting a conventional enterprise distro like Red Hat with annual commercial support contracts.

The Gendarmerie migration also demonstrates the significant cost savings that governments can get from adopting open source software. As the global financial downturn continues to put pressure on budgets, governments are going to increasingly look to open source software as a way to cut IT costs. We have recently seen moves in this direction from Canada and the UK.

I haven't used Ubuntu for more than 60 seconds, but from a very superficial look I'd say that the UI / general usage differences between (XP, Ubuntu) are at least as great as those differences between (XP, Vista). I mean, is Ubuntu just an open-source clone of XP?

Not to say that they made the wrong choice at all, I'm just skeptical that more training would be required for the XP->Vista migration than for the XP->Ubuntu migration.

The article quoted them as saying that Microsoft told them they'd need training to go to Vista. I'm sure he just threw that in to thumb his nose at the MS sales reps for trying to up-sell a little too much.

That being said, I do agree though that the title/lead text of the article seems to be wrong...

Later in the article it states the 50 million is saved by the Open Source strategy and considering that the actions since 2004 was the move to Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird across all machine, and that only after 2006 when Vista came out did they start moving to Ubuntu - it is not Ubuntu that is saving them money but rather largely the first three apps (not Office licences or Outlook and exchange servers)

That being said - Ubuntu is going to save them money by not having to purchase new hardware or licences, yet there will be some training required (or at least some initial inefficiencies), but that doesn't appear related to any number we are seeing here (other that perhaps the monies saved by not starting the Vista migration)

Oh man, the signs are aligning, this is shaping up to be the year of Linux. Between Vista being such a disappointment, Win7 not shaping up to be a whole lot better, IE8... well I don't even wanna talk about IE8, and the economy, people are seriously looking into open source alternatives. And with open source maturing fast, with many distros and apps being much more user friendly than just a few years back, the choice is becoming easier by the minute.

Originally posted by brell:So the report claims they saved 10000 euro or US$12800 per machine?! Sorry but those are some seriously made up and self serving numbers.

Where did you get those numbers? I looked through the linked report and the case study linked from that and I couldnt find those numbers. I am not saying your wrong, I just wanted to read it for myself.

Originally posted by 2late2die:Oh man, the signs are aligning, this is shaping up to be the year of Linux. Between Vista being such a disappointment, Win7 not shaping up to be a whole lot better, IE8... well I don't even wanna talk about IE8, and the economy, people are seriously looking into open source alternatives. And with open source maturing fast, with many distros and apps being much more user friendly than just a few years back, the choice is becoming easier by the minute.

great to hear success stories like this. However, I would love to see a deeper write up on user acceptance/training problems, if any. But especially how this has changed their end node management infrastructure. For example, did they go from AD/SMS to Radius/Nagios?

I'd like to see more desktop support people and "Microsoft Certified Professionals" believe that they can make money supporting linux and Open Office. It seems to me that many of them think their bread-and-butter depends on keeping shops dependent on M$. In fact I'm surprised the M$ofties haven't started trolling this article already--

I always here that Linux is so difficult to learn? It isn't. I put it on computers all day long. I give it to relatives all the time. I spend less time telling them how to do something. I spend less time taking crapware off their computers. Many times it extends the life of their computers. It isn't the Linux it was five years ago.

Not to say that they made the wrong choice at all, I'm just skeptical that more training would be required for the XP->Vista migration than for the XP->Ubuntu migration.

Don't be, while it has certain technical shortcomings because of its dedication to incremental development Ubuntu uses GNOME and GNOME is extremely simple to use. Take XP, now move the start menu to the top and place things into simple (and actually logical) categories. Accessories, Games, Internet, Office, Sound & Video, etc.

Now compare that to the very large UI changes Vista made and it becomes clear why the training is so much easier with Ubuntu than Vista, having used both there is no contest with regards to ease of use or responsiveness. It is laid out in a simple and logical way that no version of Windows to date has managed to match.

The difficulties come when trying to do something which isn't particularly well supported, of which there are a number of things. However, those don't come up in typical usage.

A not insignificant correction though: the Gendarmerie Nationale is not France's national police force. That would be the "Police Nationale". It's a specialised force doing police duties in rural areas and nominally part of the army (though it answers to the Interior Minister, not the Defence one). It's the smaller of the two, with about 100 000 personnel. As such, while the fact that they switched to Ubuntu is important, it's not quite to the level it would be if the entire French police had.

By reading the OSOR report linked, which explains where saves are made, I see only one drawback:The guy whose job was travelling to French Polynesia for updates now have no excuse to go on trip to Tahiti...

Someone at Ars should do a follow up and ask them what their line of business apps are. I'm pretty sure a police force's main app isn't Office or one of it's clones. I can tell you that with the number of desktops we have, Windows licensing and Office licensing, while significant, is not our biggest expense. How much did it cost the Gendarmerie Nationale to get their primary apps to linux? Did they hire developers to do it? Did they build a Virtualization/Teminal Services/Citrix backend to run it? Those are the real questions. Did they really save all that money or did they turn around and spend it (and some more) on back end server services? I've seen it more than once where the "desktop group" proposes Linux as cost savings from their budget, but would require even more expense from the back end.

It's an important question to ask, because it's not Microsoft Office that keeps most shops on Windows.

Originally posted by Banzai51:Someone at Ars should do a follow up and ask them what their line of business apps are. I'm pretty sure a police force's main app isn't Office or one of it's clones. I can tell you that with the number of desktops we have, Windows licensing and Office licensing, while significant, is not our biggest expense. How much did it cost the Gendarmerie Nationale to get their primary apps to linux? Did they hire developers to do it? Did they build a Virtualization/Teminal Services/Citrix backend to run it? Those are the real questions. Did they really save all that money or did they turn around and spend it (and some more) on back end server services? I've seen it more than once where the "desktop group" proposes Linux as cost savings from their budget, but would require even more expense from the back end.

It's an important question to ask, because it's not Microsoft Office that keeps most shops on Windows.

- It seems that they had old applications, inconsistent with other police forces.- In 2002, they started making their applications web-based (they don't do them, they hire IT service companies, but they manage maintenance themselves).- For "human resources", they ask SAP to make its application web-enabled too.- They use virtualized servers (Debian) to deploy their applications.

In fact making their applications available via web browser let them switching from Windows to Linux without problem.

Not to say that they made the wrong choice at all, I'm just skeptical that more training would be required for the XP->Vista migration than for the XP->Ubuntu migration.

Don't be, while it has certain technical shortcomings because of its dedication to incremental development Ubuntu uses GNOME and GNOME is extremely simple to use. Take XP, now move the start menu to the top and place things into simple (and actually logical) categories. Accessories, Games, Internet, Office, Sound & Video, etc.

Now compare that to the very large UI changes Vista made and it becomes clear why the training is so much easier with Ubuntu than Vista, having used both there is no contest with regards to ease of use or responsiveness. It is laid out in a simple and logical way that no version of Windows to date has managed to match.

Can you detail these "very large" UI changes Vista made that negatively affect the average user?

Someone at Ars should do a follow up and ask them what their line of business apps are. I'm pretty sure a police force's main app isn't Office or one of it's clones. I can tell you that with the number of desktops we have, Windows licensing and Office licensing, while significant, is not our biggest expense. How much did it cost the Gendarmerie Nationale to get their primary apps to linux? Did they hire developers to do it? Did they build a Virtualization/Teminal Services/Citrix backend to run it? Those are the real questions. Did they really save all that money or did they turn around and spend it (and some more) on back end server services? I've seen it more than once where the "desktop group" proposes Linux as cost savings from their budget, but would require even more expense from the back end.

It's an important question to ask, because it's not Microsoft Office that keeps most shops on Windows.

Moving from MS Office to OpenOffice is saving money, but you're right it might not be THE factor (and btw, the Gendarmerie is more than ok with OOo, since all it uses is a spreadsheet for calculating tickets and a simple word processor to wright the bill they send you , ok, I'm kidding).

BUT, a government organization like the Gendarmerie uses private servers, see the connexion with Linux ? Running a Linux server is time and cost saving, especially for government. Also, the government cannot afford to be tied with a private company, espacially the French government with an American company, it would be against the governments principles. If MS was local, maybe they would consider it, but it isn't. Open source is definitly the good solution for government, even the US government is heading that way (maybe with some Macs here and here too ).

To get back to the servers. My university used to be on linux servers, and it was running well. In 2005, they decided to switch to MS, with Exchange and all the rest, to look more "business like" (come on, it's a university, not a business school!). It was a total mess, and still is. Even today, we got more slowdowns and disconnection that we had in 2004, and they've put a new special "technology fee" on our bills in 2006, to fund the new servers. Did I get any avantages? Nope, nada, nothing. Noting has improved, excepted maybe the new webmail UI... but I use Thunderbird so I don't care.

Sorry, but MS only has a point in business, not in public agencies, schools, police forces, whatever. France is just one of the countries understanding that (even if their new Internet laws scare me!)

quote: Originally posted by brell: So the report claims they saved 10000 euro or US$12800 per machine?! Sorry but those are some seriously made up and self serving numbers.

I suspect that most of the savings were in labor, so it's not as useful to look at cost per machine.

When you factor in the cost of the vista license, the MS Office Pro license and then add in the per user backend cost of Outlook server, Active directory, authentication servers, etc, etc ,etc and whatever else they use for software it could indeed add up quickly.

I don't doubt that they saved some bucks. However, the part of "training" to use Vista? That's was so funny, I laughed for full minute. Most of Vista's changes are under the hood. In essence, Windows Vista is merely a variation of Windows 2000 and XP. Win2k was NT 5. WinXP is NT 5.1. Vista is NT6. Its not like the change from Windows 3 to Windows 95. There are some UI changes, but I adapted to Vista in a week without formal training. If you're saying that the French Gendarmerie isn't smart enough to run a variation of Windows 2000 and XP, then perhaps the Gendarmerie need to raise their recruiting standards.

As someone who's logged many hundred's of hours on Mac, Windows, and Linux, the changes in Vista do not require you to change how you use an OS. That is an absolute joke. My father who is way less techno savy than I am and was born in the 1950's, migrated to Windows Vista in 24 hours. "It was not much different from XP." My father's exact words. So please. The French are so melodramatic here. All I know is according to an IBM X-Force Threat Report, the Linux Kernel is the 2nd most vulnerable with Mac being number one, for the last 3 years. These numbers are back by the U.S. NVD and Microsoft's own SIR's.

As for me, I'll wait for Windows 7. Anyone whose actually used it knows its way better than anything the Linux guys can throw at it. We've been hearing that every year is the "Year of Linux." Well, according to netbooks sales, Microsoft just took that market away from Linux too. Maybe 2010, 2011, or 2012 will be the "Year of Linux." As for me, I'm a validated skeptic. To me, 15 years of Microsoft dominance says that Linux is an epic fail of 15 years.

I haven't used Ubuntu for more than 60 seconds, but from a very superficial look I'd say that the UI / general usage differences between (XP, Ubuntu) are at least as great as those differences between (XP, Vista). I mean, is Ubuntu just an open-source clone of XP?

Not to say that they made the wrong choice at all, I'm just skeptical that more training would be required for the XP->Vista migration than for the XP->Ubuntu migration.

I use Ubuntu both at home on a desktop.

Linux has always suffered from "usability" problems, however Ubuntu has come close to nailing it.

Also most people that do "word processing" type tasks simply use email, spreadsheets, and a word processor. You don't need to dig into the operating system. You can create desktop icons for these things on the desktop in your "OS image" that you push out to the computers.

Since OpenOffice is very windows like, and almost everyone uses Firefox anyway, what's to train on??

There are alot of Unix type things such as package managers, terminal windows, etc, etc. etc. But for OFFICE type things, theres not much of a transition.

Hilarious to read the doubters' comments. What so mysterious about savings achieved by running a license free OS (they could have used Mandriva and paid maintenance but chose Ubuntu instead) to run web based application and IMAP email clients ?Note that they still have a lot of Windows machines, probably for those stations that run legacy windows only software, hence the 2015 timeline for full migration.

IT forums are full of people complaining about vista's hardware requirements whereas ubuntu runs happily on my 8 years old PC. So that's another big (hardware) saving.

Another saving is no doubt on the antivirus front.

Although I am sure they had their share of issues and costs, it's obvious that their are huge savings to be done by going down the OS/Vendor independent route.

Personally I run Linux at home on the old rig and vista on my laptop, hoping that windows7 will stop making me regret not buying a Mac.